So She Waits
by WhenTheSkyeQuakes
Summary: She's sitting next to him in physics, then in his arms at Sci-Ops. She's staring death in the face in the ocean, then kissing his cheek in the aftermath of her resurrection. She's screaming for him to not let go, then clutching his lifeless hand. He's struggling to breathe, but she's continents away. And at the other end of the galaxy, she prepares for death. And so she waits.


**For .fitzsimmons, AKA Audrey, my buddy over on Instagram. Do yourself a favor and go follow her :3 You won't regret it!**

* * *

The first time she realizes it, he's sitting right next to her.

He's got his hand brushing gently against hers as they sit in physics class, listening to the presentation at their shared session as they have for the past three months. It's nothing special, nothing unique, and most certainly nothing romantic.

He's touching her in perhaps the least intimate way possible, a quick brush of skin, and yet it feels like fire.

She's ashamed. He's her best friend. Yet here she is, sitting in class, staring at his profile out of the corner of her eyes as she traces his jawline. He's so sweet and kind and gentle and unlike anyone else in the whole Sci-Ops population.

Something tugs at her, yet she dismisses it as just another silly crush all seventeen year-old girls harbor. But it's different, and she knows it.

They would be perfect together. Unstoppable. A pair of some of the brightest minds on the planet, together forever in every way possible.

But he doesn't feel the same way. That much is obvious. He's a friend – one who knows her phone number better than his own, the way she takes her tea down to the drop, the nervous ticks she possesses and the temperature of her room at night. Just a friend.

So she thinks of telling him about the flutter that ignites heavily inside her at every accidental brush of skin, but she knows she can't. Because the feeling will die off and soon they'll both break and go their separate ways just like her other male interests.

And she can't lose him.

So she waits.

* * *

It had been a tough enough year, simply put. He kept right by her side, thick and thin, joy and pain.

As her mother had put it multiple times, he was a keeper.

Jemma would blush and respond with a weak 'Yeah, I know,' and change the topic. He was simply not looking at her that way, not for a romantic interest. It was a fact she'd resigned herself to long ago.

But at least he hadn't left. Fitz was definitely different, she was reminded of this time and time again. He was seemingly content to stay right next to her, and never spoke of the days following their graduation. The day they would separate.

It was a day cold with January snow when he stomped into her apartment, kicking snow from his boots. His nose was cherry red, but he was beaming.

"Jemma, I think I've got it!" he called into her overly neat dorm.

In her bedroom, her stomach did a three-sixty at his use of her first name. But she suppressed it, as she had done so many times before.

"Yes, Fitz?" she smiled warmly, anticipating his answer as she shuffled into the living area.

Boots and coat abandoned, he swept her up into his arms. Her skin burned with his warm touch, an electric feeling coursing through her veins. She simply reveled in the feel of him, the scent of his cologne.

"I found us a job. Together," he breathed into her hair, still clutching her tight. She practically melted at his words, stomach once again fluttering.

"Oh," she replied, still shocked that he had been looking into something such as this.

Fitz pulled back, eyes worried he'd over stepped, holding her at arm's length to get a read on her emotions. "That's . . . erm, that's alright, yeah?"

Jemma nodded vigorously. "Yes, of course. I wouldn't ever want to go somewhere without you,"

He pulled her flush to his chest again, planting a small kiss in her hair. "Neither would I,"

She knows that she should tell him, but she can't.

And so she waits.

* * *

He's combining, mixing, waiting, holding his breath. She's growing weaker by the minute, eyes constantly darting around for any floating objects.

Her heart is racing, both at the odds of her survival and the odds of her ever saying what she wants to.

She wants nothing more than to grab him and sob into his shoulder like when she found out her grandfather had passed so long ago, but he can't get this too.

The rat squeaks its protest as Fitz lifts the delivery mechanism to its thigh, and she wonders if this will be it. Maybe this will be the one to save her, to save any chance of a future together.

It wasn't.

The rodent drops dead to the ground after a moment of suspended silence. She wipes her tears and turns away.

She tells herself not to encourage the magnetic attraction she's had to him for years. Telling him now will only make it harder for him to move on after she's gone.

The last hour ticks by slowly. It feels like days before there's nothing left to go off of. Just like that, her life is over.

There will never be anymore late nights in the lab. No more embraces. No more quiet, longing looks.

There will never be a day when she'll wake up and turn over to see his sleeping figure. Walk down the aisle in white with him at the end. She'll never hold his hand and stroll though the baby aisle. She'll never teach a little child the periodic table with him.

They'll never be a 'they.'

So she approaches him from behind, tears beginning to blur her vision. He's speaking of how he may have found another way, but she knows there's no other option.

She wants to tell him, but she knows she can't. He's going to have to live without her, alone, until he meets that perfect girl. Like Skye. Jemma had seen the way he looked at her.

Her heart throbs, and she knows this is the end of the line. Just once she wants to feel his lips on hers, but it will never happen along with so many other things.

Jemma brings the fire extinguisher down on his neck. He crumples along with whatever is left of her heart.

She stares down at the sea below, ignoring his cries. She wants him to know just once before she goes, but she can't.

And so she jumps.

There will be no more waiting.

* * *

But as cruel fate would have it, she doesn't die and he doesn't let her.

It's cruel because here she was, perhaps, finally over him and ready to move on, when here he is with a whole new reason to fall in love with him all over again.

It's stupid and selfish to think the only way she'd ever get over him was death, and in that moment she realizes how completely insane this all was. He occupied her every waking thought, and then even her dreams were filled with his eyes.

It had been well over enough time to stop calling it a crush, but she didn't want to. Calling it by anything other only made it all more real, and it hurt like heck.

Because Jemma Simmons was head over heels in love with a man who thought of her as nothing more than a friend.

Not that she would ever say a word of it, but seeing him there, vocal chords raw from screaming and looking absolutely wrecked at her near loss, made her open her mouth.

The words froze on the tip of her tongue, teeth like a cage keeping her thoughts. It was tearing her apart at the seams. So instead she told him he was the hero, not Ward.

It was all she could do to smile and not cry out her thoughts right then and there, but it wasn't right. It wasn't right for him to carry it around like the burden she did.

His eyes were as blue as the ocean she'd just dove headfirst into, his face bright at her words. It took all she had to not kiss him senseless then and there, somehow knowing he would respond.

Instead she kissed him on the cheek, standing quickly and pretending not to see the dumb, awestruck expression on his face.

She wants so badly to say it, but she doesn't know how.

So she waits.

* * *

She's screaming at him til her lungs ache for the lack of oxygen.

His eyes are as blue as their surroundings, and she's sobbing for him not to leave her here alone. But he stands fast, not wavering as he tells her to take the canister.

She resists; she isn't strong enough to live without him. He's the one thing to wake up to everyday after their worlds had gone to hell, after the thing they'd striven for their entire adult lives crumbled to ashes.

Her lips wanted to repeat the First Law of Thermodynamics again, because she was terrified.

If he was going to die, she was going to, too. They would burn in a supernova ten billion years from now. As long as their atoms remained together, she could die with that.

But he was saving her. He was curling her fingers around the cool metal of that canister, telling her to hold on tight.

The oxygen didn't matter. It was pointless.

Her oxygen wasn't kept in a bottle or made up 21% of the earth's atmosphere. No, her O2 wasn't what every other human needed. It wasn't necessary to her survival.

Because her oxygen was five foot eight and had been beside her the whole damn time.

The world could go up in flames or drown in water – it didn't matter to her. As long as they burned together.

She peppered his cut and marred face with her lips, memorizing the contour of his cheek bones. He held her close to him, but still far enough away to accept his fate. The look in his eyes were permanently burned into her retinas, killing her just a little bit more.

It was in the back of her throat, choking her, but he said it first.

"Yeah, and you're more than that, Jemma. I just didn't have the chance to tell you, so please, let me show you,"

His hand slammed on the button. She screamed. Water rushed in, clogging her nose and mouth and somehow she remembered to raise the can to her face.

She didn't get a chance to tell him.

And so she waits.

* * *

The beeping is annoying.

That's the only though circulating through her head, right next to every single thing she's kept lodged in her heart and is dying to tell him.

 _Dying._

A bitter smirk crosses her face as her eyes fill with tears. Yes, she was dying to tell him. Literally, and even then she couldn't get it around her usually liberal tongue to spit it out.

It was an amazement she even had tears left to cry, sitting here at his bedside. He was still and silent and lifeless, and she was sickeningly reminded of every human dissection she'd ever performed.

She couldn't see his lips. Or any of his nose and central face. It was all covered by the mask that kept oxygen flowing in and out of his lungs. His ever-moving hands were still, chalk-white and blending in with the drab hospital sheets.

But she holds it anyways, not willing herself to let go. Just like she did as the water rushed in, or as she struggled to keep both their heads above water.

The beeping continues.

And so she waits.

* * *

A phone is all Jemma has left of him, next to so many nightmares and dreams. She sees him getting better at the cost of her own soul, and part of her wants to just take a lit match to HYDRA so she can go home to him.

But she has a mission. And there's only one thing making him worse, and that's her.

It's quite twisted, really. The one thing she needs is the one thing he can't have. It's like someone's cruel joke, and the recurring thought of it brings tears to her eyes over and over again.

The videos she gets every week are all that keeps her going. He's smiling and laughing and joking. The shakes in his hands are beginning to recede, and now he can string sentences together with only a bit of difficulty.

Skye's by his side. Jemma's jealous, and she's not scared to say it. The orphan has what the biochemist dreams of, and yet it's probably more of a burden to her than anything else.

Why was everything wasted? She wouldn't hesitate to see him, to take his hand and kiss his cheek and tell him it would all be fine. Instead, there was another woman with him.

The fact he had said she was 'more than that' still rung in her ears, but so did the multiple flat lines of the heart monitor. It was little consolation. It was more than likely a random outburst in the heat of the moment, and he probably just meant she was like a sister to him.

Nothing more, nothing less.

If he had meant in the way she hoped, he hadn't ever mentioned it. His videos still came, but they never strayed over the invisible personal line of 'remember when?' academy days.

Her heart was telling her to reply with one of her own, to tell him what she hadn't had the chance to say at the bottom of the ocean, but if there was one thing that made him worse, it was her.

And so she waits.

* * *

It's all blue.

It was astounding and beautiful at first, and she stumbled about in awe for awhile at it. But her curiosity faded once the fear set in.

Soon the hue became a mockery, a slap in the face that it was the color of his eyes and she could stare at it all day like her dreams. But unlike her dreams, he wasn't here himself.

His eyes were everywhere, but he was no where.

And how ironic it is that out of her two largest struggles, they both take place in the two most questionable areas in the cosmos – deep sea and space.

Both were the color of his irises, so true and loyal and fierce. Just the passion with which he spoke about science, and the love he held when he'd asked her on a date.

She was certain of it now, presumably light years away from home, that he loved her. Or at the very least felt strongly. Perhaps he wasn't speaking half truths at the bottom of the ocean. He could have really meant it.

But it was too late now, with sand crooked into every space it could inhabit. The tears would no longer come when she cried, too dehydrated to muster any liquid.

Never had she felt so low in her life, stranded here on this horrid planet. All of those years, those perfect moments just to lean over and press her lips to his and tell him how he owned her heart were over. She would never get another chance.

Jemma knew she was going to die.

It was the third time she had felt it with such sincerity, but now she knew for certain there was no way out of it. There would be no clever plan or miracle drug. There was no Fitz here beside her for support.

She was going to die on a desert planet alone. Her friend would never know how she wished a different turn on their relationship, or how many times she'd come close to saying those three little words.

He would never know how helplessly she screamed for the sun, or how she cried out to the wind 'I love you' again and again. She could never say them to him, but now, ready to die, she could say them freely and never be scared of consequences.

She should have told him, but she never took the gamble.

And so she waits for death to take her.

* * *

But it doesn't.

* * *

When she finally says it, it's not perfect or romantic or at all what she'd planned. They're sitting in a cheap rental car driving down the dark highway in silence, nothing but the light British radio filtering through the gap between them.

So she turns to him and softly whispers, "You know I love you, right?"

She tells him the same way she fell in love with him – simply, like breathing. She loves him because he's him and she's her and that's all that matters. He's not some grandiose romantic, and they're not in Paris like how the fairy tales go.

It's not amazing or ideal, it just is. It's like the facts they each had memorized as early as they knew how – it simply exists. It's them, they're together, both trying to outrun their demons. But they could rest easier in each others arms at night, curled together tightly against the dreams.

Jemma's not stunned at her words because they're facts, something they've exchanged an innumerable amount of times over the years. But she must have gotten lost in her thoughts for a moment, because the next thing she knows they're stopped on the shoulder of the road with nothing but lightning bugs and trees for miles on end.

He's looking at her as always, the pining dimmed just a bit but the adoration still ever present. A smile lightly graces his lips. "I think so,"

She bites her lip, contemplating what to say next. Yet that's when it hits her.

That's always been their problem, talking too much but never about things that really seem to matter. For once she lets it go, lets go of the million stray, fleeting thoughts in her chest and simply does instead of saying.

He's restarting the car, seeming a bit put off by her silence. She doesn't give him a chance to completely turn the ignition before she's leaning over the console and grabbing his shirt.

Her lips crash to his, and she savors the feeling of him so close for the first time. He's stiff and a fleeting thought races through her that she just ruined everything and she begins to pull away, but then he's melting into her. His calloused hands thread through her tangled hair, and she clings to the back of his neck for dear life as she fights to both kiss and keep her balance in her precarious state.

There's not any air left in her lungs when they finally pull apart, and his eyes are just so heavy and joyful and loving she can't help but kiss him again, this time sweeter and calmer than before.

They stare at each other, realizing that they're in deep waters now and there's no turning back intact. But she can't bring herself to care.

They're creating something new and powerful, re-establishing the unbreakable. It's as strong as titanium and as light and free as vibranium.

She's in love, and for once not scared or ashamed in the least.

* * *

She waits no longer.

* * *

Ten years later, they have matching lawn chairs set out in the British sun. Both are occupied, hands clasped across the arm rests.

It's not Scotland, and it's definitely not Perthshire, but they're together and they're happy and that's all that matters in the world.

There's Fitz's little mutt, Monkey, barking after a squirrel and Daisy and Trip chase after with little child peals of laughter. Isabelle toddles after both, trying to pronounce 'squirrel' in a way only a two year-old can.

Seven year-old Daisy gives four year-old Trip a boost into the tree, and together they clamber up the branches and into the leaves where their fort lay.

Jemma just smiles and turns to her husband. "You might want to lower that step on the tree,"

"Maybe," he grinned, leaning over to peck her on the forehead. "but isn't it more exciting when you have something to wait for and anticipate?"

She only squeezed his hand tighter, unable to stop smiling. "Of course,"

* * *

 **First try writing in this format, so tips are greatly appreciated! I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless, though :)**


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